The world is still a long way from net-zero carbon emissions: experts
Countries are all far behind in the global goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions and that could put the world in danger, Dr Ernst Reichel, Germany’s ambassador to Thailand, said during the Thai-German conference “Climate Talk” in Bangkok.
Apart from the impact on the economy, he said climate change is now reverberating in daily life and this is enabling more people to seek ways to cope with this challenge.
Despite a strong commitment to set up a climate fund, he pointed out that the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates is going to be difficult as most of the global community is calling for a fossil fuel ban.
“It is clear that the world is lagging behind in its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change,” he said.
The ambassador said Thailand and other parts of the world are seeing the consequences of climate change, such as heat waves, flooding, drought and uneven climate patterns. He added that women were more affected by climate change than men.
Agriculture worst affected
Agriculture is suffering the effects of climate change more than any other sector, with water scarcity, food security and rises in food prices constantly faced by farmers, Dr Reichel pointed out.
He emphasized that collective action among individuals, government and private sectors, as well as changes in behaviour and awareness are vital to combatting such effects.
“We need a public debate about priorities, public and private funding and other measures to make sure the transition is fair and just,” he said.
He added that all parties should overcome climate change to ensure a better world for the next generations.
Echoing Dr Reichel, Kannika Thampanishvong, section head of the Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, noted how climate change is severely affecting the Thai agriculture sector through floods, storms, saltwater intrusion, and difficulties in farming and livestock.
She pointed out that climate change could cause financial damage of up to 2.850 trillion baht to the agriculture sector between 2011 and 2045, adding that cultivated areas in the South, East and Northeast are all at risk.
“One-third of Thais are involved in the agriculture sector," she said, "We need to be concerned about these people.”
Challenges ahead
Kannika said climate change has been having an impact on humans since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Apart from agriculture, tourism and industrial sectors are also being affected.
“Climate change impacts travel decisions, tourist attractions, water sanitation and utilities," she explained. “Flooding causes the industrial sector to face supply chain disruption, a lack of raw materials for production, and damage to machines."
She added that children, the elderly and the poor are the most vulnerable to climate change.
While Thailand is making progress, there are several barriers to low-carbon transition. These are:
• Lock-in of fossil fuel infrastructure: Planned and grey energy projects in the pipeline, unabated coal power plants and so on are costly to change due to sunk investment costs and can lead to future stranded assets. These present a challenge to the development of alternative clean energy infrastructure.
• Regulatory risk: Policy discontinuity or stop-and-go policy, fossil fuel subsidies and so on.
• Laws and regulations: Under this existing regulatory structure, peer-to-peer clean energy trading is still not supported. A third-party access regime must be established to allow prosumers, or third parties, to access the grid.
• Insufficient infrastructure: Inadequate charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs).
• Lack of access to finance: Both domestic access to bank loans and international access to climate finance are lagging behind because of the length of time needed to develop proposals.
• Technology costs: Costs of some technologies are still very high, especially carbon capture and storage and energy storage systems.
The academic said measures that will play an important role in the low-carbon transition are carbon pricing, carbon tax, carbon trade, and green electricity.
She advised the government to fill the gaps that corporations cannot meet in terms of infrastructure development and improve carbon credit accreditation to meet international standards.
“We do have hope that Thailand might be able to achieve the net-zero goal in 2065 if we are open-minded and embrace different policies," she concluded.
